Thursday, May 31, 2007

So music has been very very good to us in 2007, but it's been a bumpy ride the last several weeks. Bjork's album disappointed, then Wilco's basically did too (Geoff, where's your freakin' review already?!) and last week we learned that the already rescheduled Innocence Mission show at Southpaw had been cancelled.

Then along comes The National.

Boxer is yet another album that is making our ears happy to be alive. We downloaded the first track, Fake Empire, from Idolator quite awhile ago and after a few listens realized that the album proper was worthy of a release-date purchase.

And, as you can see by the fact that we've affixed an album sticker to our bike, it was worth it. Yet another album that we see finishing in our top 5 this year, although how we'll fit a dozen albums in the top 5 remains a mystery.

Boxer is very much about becoming an adult, sacrificing your social life for the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Mistaken for Strangers, the second track, sums up the message of much of the album pretty well, although it's a bit rockier than some of the better tracks: "Showered and blue-blazered, fill yourself with quarters/you get mistaken for strangers by your own friends/when you pass them at night under the silvery, silvery Citibank lights".

Green Gloves, Jen's favorite, builds on the leaving your old friends behind theme with the opening stanza, "Falling out of touch with all my/friends are somewhere getting wasted/hope they're staying glued together/I have arms for them", while Squalor Victoria ("I'm a professional in my beloved white shirt") and RIB's favorite track, Start a War ("I'll get money, I'll get funny again/walk away now/and you're gonna start a war") further develop the album's financial issues.

But since we don't want this whole blog entry to be about regurgitating lyrics, we'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say the songs, besides being smart - and relevant to our age group here at RIB - are gorgeous, haunting and definitely worth prime sticker real estate. Released: May 22. MONEY